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    For millennials with chronic medical conditions — or those raising kids with chronic conditions — health care can be an enormous expense. About 44% of older millennials have at least one chronic health condition, including migraines, major depression and asthma, according to a 2021 poll. And many millennials are caring for children with complicated medical needs, too. Chronic conditions can be expensive, including doctor’s visits, tests and prescription drugs. But there are ways to keep health care costs lower, including taking advantage of a flexible spending account or health savings account, comparing pharmacy prices on medications and using a care manager through your insurance.

      The Idaho Senate has passed a bill criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for minors, one month after the state House passed similar. KTVB reports the Senate approved the measure 22-12.  It would bar transgender and transitioning children, or children with gender dysphoria, from receiving hormones or puberty blockers to alleviate their symptoms or help them with transitioning. Doctors prescribing these hormones or blockers could be charged with a felony and face prison time. The bill returns the House for consideration of Senate amendments. If the House agrees, the bill will go to Gov. Brad Little. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends gender affirming care to treat children struggling with gender dysphoria.

        Kansas’ highest court has signaled that it still considers access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. Multiple justices expressed skepticism Monday during hearings over two abortion-related lawsuits and peppered an attorney for the state with tough questions as he argued that a decisive statewide vote last year affirming abortion rights “doesn’t matter.” The court ruled in 2019 that the state constitution protects abortion rights, and voters affirmed that last summer. One of the two cases before the state Supreme Court deals with a 2015 law banning a common second-trimester abortion procedure. The other involves a 2011 law regulating abortion providers more strictly than other health care providers. Neither law has been enforced.

          Indiana’s Republican General Assembly is advancing a measure to ban virtually all gender-affirming medical care for minors in the state. The Indiana House voted Monday 65-30 to approve the bill, which already cleared the Senate. The bill now heads to Indiana’s Republican governor, who hasn’t said publicly if he’ll sign it. If he does, minors in Indiana won't be allowed to access hormone therapies or puberty blockers in the state. People speaking in opposition to the healthcare restrictions say those types of treatment are often life-saving for trans kids. But backers of the legislation have raised doubts on the safety and reversibility of those treatments.

          MONDAY, March 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- The pandemic period was characterized by an increase in emotional distress in 2020, followed by a decline in 2021, according to a study published online March 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

          North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has signed a Medicaid expansion law that was a decade in the making. Cooper celebrated on Monday the passage of expansion legislation from the Republican-controlled General Assembly with the bill-signing ceremony at the Executive Mansion. Cooper has wanted expansion for years, but Republicans came around to the idea recently. North Carolina has been among 11 states who haven’t accepted expansion. Cooper isn't thrilled with a provision in the bill that requiring the legislature to pass a separate state budget law first for expansion to be implemented. The governor said the law will be the "working families bill of the decade” once implemented.

          COVID in pregnancy might raise odds for neurodevelopmental issues in sons. Boys whose mothers had COVID-19 during pregnancy may be slower to reach early developmental milestones than other babies. Read more

          Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is slated to lead off opening statements expected Tuesday in his state’s lawsuit against Juul Labs. The case marks the first time any of the thousands of cases against the e-cigarette maker over its alleged marketing to young people is going to play out in a courtroom. Minnesota sued Juul in 2019, accusing the company of unlawfully targeting young people with its products to get a new generation addicted to nicotine. Juul has faced thousands of lawsuits nationwide. But most of them have settled, including 39 with other states and territories. Minnesota added tobacco giant Altria as a co-defendant in 2020.

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          Content by the Jewelers Vault. Nebraska prairie inspired Jewelry such as, natural wooly mammoth fossilized tooth earrings and an array of other organic jewelry made from buffalo horns, petrified wood and walrus ivory. 

          A well-known Kentucky Republican has blasted the GOP’s push for transgender legislation. Former GOP state lawmaker Bob Heleringer calls it “a bad look for the party of Abraham Lincoln” in a radio ad. The ad comes days before lawmakers could vote to override the Democratic governor’s veto of the bill. A companion radio ad features Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky. The Fairness Campaign paid for the commercials. It’s part of an uphill effort by the bill’s opponents to fend off an override of Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of the measure aimed at transgender young people.

          A bill that would have provided free menstrual products in girls bathrooms in Idaho public schools failed in the state House, with at least one Republican lawmaker calling the proposal “very liberal.” The measure advanced from the House Education Committee with a “do pass” recommendation but it failed on the House floor 35-35 last week. It was expected to cost $435,000 to install product dispensers and about $300,000 each year to stock them. The Idaho Statesman reports that state budget analysts have forecast a $1.4 billion tax revenue surplus at the end of the fiscal year. A bill is pending in the Florida House that would ban discussion of menstrual cycles and other human sexuality topics in elementary grades.

          A former Republican governor of Vermont has sued Middlebury College, his alma mater, accusing it of cancel culture behavior for removing the name of another former governor and Middlebury graduate from the campus chapel for what the school calls his role in eugenics policies. Former Gov. James Douglas filed the breach of contract lawsuit against Middlebury on Friday as the special administrator of John Abner Mead’s estate. Middlebury College said Monday that it has received the complaint but cannot discuss pending litigation. Middlebury announced in 2021 that Mead Memorial Chapel would “no longer bear the name John Mead."

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